I love the smell of data in the morning!
Interesting and surprising statistics about digital media and devices. Compiled & curated by Dan Calladine, Aegis Media - dan.calladine@aemedia.com -
All views expressed are my own. Please email me if you have any queries, amendments or suggestions. Follow me on twitter - I'm @dancall

Monday, 20 December 2010

"What do 2.5 million Twitter followers get you? If you're Soulja Boy, it gets you a barely tepid 13,000 in first-week sales of your new album and a debut at No. 90 on the Billboard 200. "The DeAndre Way" sold 2,000 digital copies and 11,000 physical in the United States, according to SoundScan, in the week following its Nov. 30 release. His last album, "iSouljaBoyTellem" (2008), sold 45,000 the first week -- 2,000 digital and 43,000 physical.
Now to be fair, Soulja Boy is very much as singles artist. "Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)" was the 14th best-selling digital song of all time with more than 4.6 million downloads. But even the first single from "The DeAndre Way" -- "Pretty Boy Swag" -- didn't stack up, with 590,000 downloads since it first went on sale in June. Track sales from the new album total 718,000."
Source: Billboard, 17th December 2010

Friday, 17 December 2010

"A report from inside China Unicom yesterday said that to date the operator has sold nearly 600,000 iPhone 4 handsets. More than 700,000 users pre-ordered the phone, meaning another 100,000 pre-orders are yet to be filled."
Source: Marbridge Daily/Oriential Morning Post, 17th December 2010

"BPI figures for the 12 months ending in September 2010 show that digital services now accounts for a big slice of UK record industry revenue - 24.5%, up from 19.2% a year earlier. Rising levels of income from digital music are not offsetting declining revenues from falling CD sales, however.
Innovation is helping to drive growth beyond the traditional a la carte music purchase model pioneered by market leader iTunes. 18% of digital income now comes from a mixture of subscription services – like those offered by Napster and eMusic – and the ad-supported services including Spotify and We7."
Source: BPI Digital Music Nation Report, December 2010
Download the full report here

Thursday, 16 December 2010

"The latest research commissioned by radio audience measurement body Rajar reveals that 8.1 million people in the UK – 16% of the adult population – have downloaded a podcast, with nearly half of them (44%) listening to such a service at least once a week.
The popularity of smartphones is also changing the way we listen to the radio: 6.6 million adults (13% of the population) have listened on their mobile phone at least once, and 2.2 million downloaded a radio app, a 57% increase in less than six months. The last survey, in May, put the download figure at 1.4 million.
But it's not an entirely digital experience – more than half of people listening to the radio on their mobile did so using a specific preset on analogue FM, compared with 16% running an app for a specific station.
The research, carried out by Ipsos Mori last month, also suggested that 16.3 million people have listened to the radio via the internet, and 12.7 million have used a listen-again service such as the BBC's iPlayer."
Source: The Guardian, 15th December 2010

Source: WSJ blog, 13th December 2010
Note - Data comes from hackers who were able to access the site and extract the passwords.
Passwords in red are the names of Gawker sites - e.g. people were using the name of the site as their password

"Twitter has raised $200m (£129m) in new finance, in a deal that values the social networking service at $3.7bn.
It said the investment had come from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, and existing investors.
Twitter is also adding two new board members, including David Rosenblatt, boss of digital advertising group DoubleClick.
[...]
It has 175 million registered users and 300 employees."
Source: BBC News, 15th December 2010

"Crimes linked to Facebook reached more than 100,000 across the country in the last five years, it emerged yesterday.
Police chiefs in 16 forces revealed that 7,545 calls from the public since January were concerned with the social networking site.
Callers have alerted officers to alleged acts of terrorism, sudden deaths, missing pets and even firearms offences.
Facebook users have used to site to detect crimes ranging from terrorism to missing pets
Frauds, sexual offences and hate crimes were also reported to police, as well as a large number of malicious messages on the site.
The figures have been obtained by the Daily Mail via Freedom of Information Act requests to forces.
They compare to just 1,411 calls related to Facebook to police in the whole of 2005, when the network began to gain popularity."

Top albums
1.The Fame Monster by Lady Gaga
2.Lungs by Florence + The Machine
3.Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons
4.xx by The xx
5.Rated R by Rihanna
6.Jason Derulo by Jason Derulo
7.Animal by Ke$ha
8.THE E.N.D. (THE ENERGY NEVER DIES) by Black Eyed Peas
9.The Element Of Freedom by Alicia Keys
10.The Blueprint 3 by Jay-Z
11.Lights by Ellie Goulding
12.Only Revolutions by Biffy Clyro
13.Sunny Side Up by Paolo Nutini
14.brand new eyes by Paramore
15.The Sound Of The Smiths by The Smiths
16.My Worlds by Justin Bieber
17.I AM…SASHA FIERCE by Beyoncé
18.Turn it Up by Pixie Lott
19.The Family Jewels by Marina and The Diamonds
20.Shock Value II by Timbaland
Source: Spotify, December 2010 - follow the link to see the top 100.

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

"The US-based study found that 79% of all moms with children under the age of 18 were active on social media. The study broadly defines active as someone who currently belongs to a social network, or who reads, writes or comments on blogs.
Marketers will want to perk up for these next results: 23% of these social media moms have purchased a children’s product as a result of a review or recommendation they read on social media. And the most active moms are even more influenced by their online social networks, with 43% of those who log on at least once a day report purchasing based on a review they read online.
Of those who report purchasing a children’s product because of something they read on their social networks, 55% said that this recommendation came directly from a personal review blog – not a corporate-sponsored Twitter account or online advertisement on the side of Google search.
And Facebook is, of course, a huge influencer as well. 40% of the moms who report purchasing something because of what they read online said that the recommendation that drove them to make the purchase came from Facebook."
Source: Data from NPG Groiup, reported by Social Times, 13th December 2010

"Web-obsessed Britons spend an average of 16 minutes surfing their social networks while laying in bed, a study shows.
A survey reveals that 72 per cent of people update their social networking profiles from bed
The survey, conducted by Travelodge, found that 72 per cent of adults update their social networking profiles from under the duvet, spending an average of 16 minutes per night checking Facebook, Twitter and other social sites.
The peak time for bed-based social networking was found to be 9.45am, with 18 per cent of those questioned admitting to accessing Twitter at that time."
Source: The Telegraph, 14th December 2010

"Americans are now spending as many hours online as they do in front of their TV screens, according to a survey released by Forrester on Monday.
The average American now spends roughly 13 hours per week using the Internet and watching TV offline, Forrester finds, based on its survey of more than 30,000 customers. The Internet has long captivated the attention of younger Americans to a greater extent than TV and is now proving more popular to Gen X (ages 31 to 44) for the first time ever. Younger Baby Boomers (ages 45 to 54) are spending the same amount of time per week using both media.
While the amount of time Americans spend watching TV has remained roughly the same in the past five years, Internet use has increased by 121% in the same time frame."

Source: Data from Forrester Research, Inc, reported by Mashable, 13th December 2010Update - some beg to differ:
"The problem is Forrester’s findings don’t remotely square with existing measurement on TV and internet usage. While the study found that in January and February of 2010 consumers reported spending 13 hours per week on both TV and internet, data from Nielsen and comScore (NSDQ:SCOR - News), arguably the most reliable sources for measurement of TV and internet usage, offer a markedly different picture.
ESPN plans to meet Wednesday with Forrester, which counts the sports juggernaut as a client, to share its concerns. “Our fundamental concern is that, in a very confusing media landscape, we’re trying to answer very important questions about the behaviors of consumers,” said Dave Coletti, vice president of digital media research and analytics at ESPN (NYSE:DIS - News). “It’s imperative that we answer questions with the right methods.”
In the first quarter of 2010, Nielsen clocked weekly usage at 38 hours and 44 minutes, nearly three times what Forrester found. Over the same time frame, comScore’s account of internet usage was 7 hours and 24 minutes, about half of what Forrester found.
Why these numbers are so divergent cuts to the heart of the difficulties ESPN has with this Forrester study. The Forrester numbers are entirely based on self-reporting, or what the 30,000 respondents to the survey say is their consumption habits. But that’s a subjective metric different from the kind of metered measurement Nielsen and comScore do. They may have their own well-documented faults, but are at least they’re objective.
But what’s more troubling to Glenn Enoch, vice president of integrated research at ESPN, is that in media-research circles, self-reporting is known to be notoriously slippery. “It’s something we’re generally careful about,” he said.
To wit: In a Video Consumer Mapping study conducted last year by Ball State University Center for Media Design that is widely regarded as a landmark piece of research, one of the key findings noted, “Serious caution needs to be applied in interpreting self-report data for media use. TV was substantially under-reported while online video and mobile video usage were over-reported.”"
Source: Yahoo Finance/PaidContent, 15th December 2010

"Blizzard Entertainment on Monday said that the latest chapter in its winning "World of Warcraft" online computer game franchise sold more than 3.3 million copies in just 24 hours on the market.
"Cataclysm" snatched the crown for fastest-selling computer game from "Wrath of the Lich King" software released in 2008 as the second expansion to the franchise.
[...]
More than 12 million people worldwide pay monthly subscription fees to play the massively multi-player online role-playing game."
Source: AFP, 14th December 2010

Monday, 13 December 2010

"Google garnered 59 percent of a U.S. mobile advertising market worth $877 million in 2010, thanks largely to the search ad business the company claimed was operating at a $1 billion run-rate this year.
Market researcher IDC said Apple was the runner-up at 8.4 percent of the U.S. ad spend, which rose 138 percent from the $368 million spent last year. Millennial Media collected 6.8 percent of revenue share for the year.
IDC analyst Karsten Weide added search and display ad revenues to calculate total market share. Weide, who factored in Google's $1 billion search ad run-rate, said Google's 2010 gross revenue will be $519 million. Apple will tally $73.5 million while Millennial will bank $60 million."
Source: IDC data, reported by eWeek, 12th December 2010

"Angry Birds has now hit 50 million downloads and over 10 million on Android. He also confirmed Angry Birds will be coming to the PC, Mac and other gaming consoles and there will be some new things “happening online” in the new year."
Source: Techcrunch, 10th December 2010
Note - Angry Birds was launched on 11th December 2009

"The X Factor sparked a £5m phone vote bonanza after more than 15 million votes were cast during the course of the series won by Matt Cardle last night.
A total of 15,488,019 votes were cast during the seventh season of Simon Cowell's ITV1 show, which peaked with a record of nearly 20 million viewers on Sunday.
The figures, published for the first time today, revealed that Cardle won every round of voting apart from the first, when he was beaten into second place by Mary Byrne.
Viewers voted by phone or via the red button, with landline and red button votes costing 35p each, but votes from mobile phones were likely to cost substantially more.
But even at 35p, the total number of votes translates to revenue of more than £5.4m, with proceeds split between Simon Cowell's Syco production company, the programme's co-producer Fremantle Media, broadcaster ITV and the phone vote operator, Harvest Media.
The total revenue, however, is set to be much higher once mobile phone votes are taken into account. How the revenue is divided between the four parties remains a closely kept secret."
Source: The Guardian, 13th December 2010

"The X Factor final attracted a record audience of almost 20 million viewers last night, ITV said.
The broadcaster said that the series notched up the biggest non-sport audience on any channel since 2001.
A peak of 19.4 million (a 60% share of TV viewers) tuned into see Matt Cardle take this year's crown on ITV1 and ITV1 HD.
The two-hour show, which kicked off at 7.30pm, was seen by an average of 17.2 million, a 55% share.
Both figures are records for the X Factor, which this year has been dogged by controversy.
[...]
The previous X Factor record - a 19.1 million peak and 15.5 million average - was achieved last year. ITV said last night's show was the biggest non-sport audience since 2001, when the Only Fools And Horses Christmas Day special attracted around 21 million on BBC1.
Source: Press Association, 13th December 2010

"Among 1,600 iPad owners polled by the Reynolds Journalism Institute this fall, 84.4% identified keeping up with news and current events as a main use of the new tablet. Leisure reading (81.5%) was not far behind, followed closely by browsing the Web (80.8%).
In terms of engagement, a massive 78.6% report spending at least 30 minutes a day with news content on the iPad. In this same group, only 52.5% spend the same time with news on TV, while 50.7% spend that much news consumption time on the PC. In fact, 48.9% of iPad owners are reporting that they are engaged in news reading for one hour or more on a typical day. Irrespective of just news consumption, the large majority of owners (62.7%) says they spend at least an hour in a typical day with the device.
One reason news consumption may skew so high in this survey over other content categories is the extreme gender skew of the device among these respondents – 80.2% male. That high percentage may be an anomaly for this survey. A previous Yahoo survey of iPad users also found a male-skewing demo, but at the much lower rate of about 60%. For now at least, the iPad owner fits the early adopter profile: 55.6% making over $100,000 in household income; 76.3% with college degrees or better; and 69.5% ages 35 to 64."
Source: Min Online, 10th December 2010

"Zynga’s newest game, CityVille, is the fastest growing game in the company’s history. But we already knew that. It had nearly 300,000 players in the first 24 hours, and 3 million daily active users in its first week.
But it’s growth ramp keeps on going crazy. Now, not quite two days after it hit the 3-million user mark, it is already at 6 million daily active users, we’ve learned from the company. To put that in perspective, that is four times faster than it took FrontierVille to get to 6 million daily active users, and more than five time faster than it took FarmVille.
Time It Took To Get To 6 Million Daily Active Users
FarmVille: 46 days
FrontierVille: 32 days
CityVille: 8 days"
Source: Techcrunch, 11th December 2010
Update - 22m in 11 days

Thursday, 9 December 2010

Update - The gossip site Popbitch has a different take on the story:
"Neatly proving just how ineffective social media actually is, 18 celebrities (and Jay Sean) sacrificed their "digital lives" for charity last week, vowing to stop updating their Twitter and Facebook feeds. Social network silence from Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake and others until their fans donated a million dollars to the Keep A Child Alive campaign to help fight AIDS.
With six days gone, donations were still under $300k. The celebs got restive - Usher just plain gave up and started tweeting - so a billionaire patsy, and longtime AIDS funder Stewart Bahr, was drafted in to pay it off.
It would have cost the celebs' 35 million combined followers less than 3 cents each to buy back their lives and get them tweeting again, so it appears their fans are staunchly pro-AIDS, or no-one really cared very much about what they had to say in the first place.
FYI Serena Williams inadvertently summed up the campaign's biggest problem in her last tweet and testament: "[It means] no more news about me winning more Grand Slams, selling books, winning gold medals, owning AMAZING football teams or pioneering fashion until we raise some serious cash". Is it any wonder people wanted her silenced? http://bit.ly/huo25w "
Source: Popbitch newsletter, Issue 526, 9th December 2010

Monday, 6 December 2010

"Last.fm has just published its financial report for 2009 on Companies House in the UK, revealing a loss for the financial year of just under £2.84 million.
The company ended 2009 with net liabilities of £22.24 million, but says parent company CBS continues to “make available such funds as are needed” by the music service.
Last.fm’s turnover for 2009 was £7.28 million, up from £4.19 million in 2008. However, its cost of sales was £7.2 million in 2009, down from £8 million in 2008. That meant Last.fm reported a gross profit of £86,322 in 2009, compared to a gross loss of £3.81 million in 2008.
[...]
Of that £7.28 million, £5.37 million came from advertising sales – 73.7%. A further £1.3 million came from subscriptions (17.9%), with just over £0.6 million coming from affiliate sales (8.4%).
Geographically, 54.8% of Last.fm’s revenues in 2009 came from the UK, with 33.5% coming from the US, 9.4% from EU countries, and 2.3% from the rest of the world (right – click for larger). Last.fm’s headcount fell from an average of 79 in 2008 to 55 in 2009, according to the report."
Source: Music Ally, 3rd December 2010

"Seventy per cent of European online sales are from just three countries, new research has found.
FACT-Finder, an ecommerce specialist, found that the big three are the UK, with €48bn in annual sales, Germany, with €39.2bn and France with €25bn.
At the same time, cross-border trading is a challenge for many online stores, said the report. Cultural differences mean that despite the physical closeness of countries such as France and Germany, advertising campaigns do not translate across borders and few of their online stores trade beyond national boundaries.
There’s also, said FACT-Finder, a lack of consumer confidence in buying from different countries, while complex VAT requirements make it difficult for smaller brands and retailers to sell across the European Union.
The fastest growing, though currently the smallest, online market in Europe is Poland, which generates €3.6bn in sales but has grown by 36%^ in 2010, compared to the same time in 2009. The FACT –Finder report singles this out as the market with the greatest potential since its retailers are more aware of the opportunities offered by the internet."

Thursday, 2 December 2010

"I wrote a script to crawl U.S. App Store customer reviews for the top 100 apps from every category (minus duplicates) and compute the most common words in 1-star and 5-star reviews, excluding words that were also common in 3-star reviews.
Keep in mind that the results are not representative of overall user opinions: most users don’t review apps, and people who dislike an app are more likely to leave a review than people who like it.
These are the top words by rating, with descending frequency:
*****:awesome, worth, thanks, amazing, simple, perfect, price, everything, ever, must, ipod, before, found, store, never, recommend, done, take, always, touch
*:waste, money, crashes, tried, useless, nothing, paid, open, deleted, downloaded, didn’t, says, stupid, anything, actually, account, bought, apple, already
Bold words are adjectives or likely to be used as adjectives in context."
Source: Blog post by Marco Arment, 12th September 2010